Law Commons^™

Elaborating A Human Rights Friendly Copyright Framework For Generative Ai, Christophe Geiger

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper analyses the copyright issues related to so-called “generative AI” systems and reviews the arguments currently advanced to change the copyright regime for AI-generated works from a human rights perspective. It argues that because of the applicable human rights framework for copyright but also the anthropocentric approach of human rights the protection of creators and human creativity must be considered the point of reference when assessing future reforms with regard to copyright and generative AI systems. Consequently, the copyrightability of AI-generated outputs should be considered with utmost care and only when AI is used as a technical tool for …

Briefing Note: 45th Meeting Of The Wipo Standing Committee On Copyright And Related Rights, Sean Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This analysis provides a historical and legal overview of the principle agenda items to be discussed at the 45th meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

Reforming Copyright Or Toward Another Science? A More Human Rights-Oriented Approach Under The Rebspa In Constructing A "Right To Research" For Scholarly Publishing, Klaus Beiter

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This article identifies copyright impediments existing in the sphere of science, to then make (tentative) suggestions as to how these may be overcome. It focuses on scholarly publishing only, and here primarily on digital content, specifically asking whether expensive commercial scholarly publishers continue to “add value” to research in the digital era. The deficits of copyright law and potential solutions thereto are assessed in the light of the right of everyone “to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications” (REBSPA) as laid down in Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of …

Africana Legal Studies: A New Theoretical Approach To Law & Protocol, Angi Porter

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: In 1743, a group of enslaved Africans from various estates in French colonial New Orleans gathered, held a musical ceremony sung in their native language, and discussed the actions and fate of a slaveholder named Corbin. Earlier, Corbin had threatened to shoot one of the enslaved Africans in this group, and Corbin’s brother then actually shot that person with a gun loaded with salt. Now, as the group of Africans gathered, they determined that Corbin had to die. Two months later, Corbin disappeared and was never found.

If we use a traditional (Western) legal framework to describe this …

Chinese Technology Platforms Operating In The United States: Assessing The Threat (Originally Published As A Joint Report Of The National Security, Technology, And Law Working Group At The Hoover Institution At Stanford University And The Tech, Law & Security Program At American University Washington College Of Law), Gary Corn, Jennifer Daskal, Jack Goldsmith, Chris Inglis, Paul Rosenzweig, Samm Sacks, Bruce Schneier, Alex Stamos, Vincent Stewart

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

The Conservative Court And Torture Attenuation, Ari B. Rubin

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

The Case For Presumptions Of Evil: How The E.O. 13873 'Trump' Card Could Secure American Networks From Third-Party Code Threats, Caroline Elyse Burks

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

The Emerging Shape Of Global Justice: Retrogression Or Course Correction?, Diane Orentlicher

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal Diplomacy In An Age Of Authoritarianism, Fernanda Giorgia Nicola Dr.

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Failure To Grapple With Racial Capitalism In European Constitutionalism, Fernanda Giorgia Nicola Dr.

Working Papers

Since the 1980s prominent scholars of European legal integration have used the example of U.S. constitutionalism to promote a federal vision for the European Community. These scholars, drawing lessons from developments across the Atlantic, concluded that the U.S. Supreme Court had played a key role in fostering national integration and market liberalization. They foresaw the possibility for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to be a catalyst for a similar federal and constitutional outcome in Europe. The present contribution argues that the scholars who constructed today’s dominant European constitutional paradigm underemphasized key aspects of the U.S. constitutional experience, including judgments …

The Balkanization Of Data Privacy Regulation, Fernanda Giorgia Nicola Dr.

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay examines the Supreme Court's stunning decision in the census case, Department of Commerce v. New York. I characterize Chief Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberals as an example of pursuing the ends of equality by other means – this time, through the rule of reason. Although the appeal was limited in scope, the stakes for political and racial equality were sky high. In blocking the administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, 5 members of the Court found the justification the administration gave to be a pretext. In this instance, that lie …

The Inescapable Intersection Of Race, Law, And Sports: Perspectives From The Field, N. Jeremi Duru, Michele Roberts, Woodie Dixon, Jeff Whitney

Presentations

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, race and sport were thickly intertwined. Athletes such as Arthur Ashe, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith used their platforms as sports stars to challenge racial and economic injustice. In the decades that followed, that activist spirit largely receded, but over the past several years athlete activism has been on the rise. From Miami Heat players posting a group photo in hooded sweatshirts in protest of Trayvon Martin’s killing to St. Louis Rams’ players running onto the field with hands above their heads in protest of Michael Brown’s killing to Colin …

Speech Across Borders, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As both governments and tech companies seek to regulate speech online, these efforts raise critical, and contested, questions about how far those regulations can and should extend. Is it enough to take down or delink material in a geographically segmented way? Or can and should tech companies be ordered to takedown or delink unsavory content across their entire platforms—no matter who is posting the material or where the unwanted content is viewed? How do we deal with conflicting speech norms across borders? And how do we protect against the most censor-prone nation effectively setting global speech rules? These questions were …

In Search Of The Final Head Ball: The Case For Eliminating Heading From Soccer,, N. Jeremi Duru

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Soccer is unquestionably the world's most popular sport. Two hundred and eleven countries have national soccer associations, hundreds of millions of people across the globe play recreationally, and Federation Internationale de Football Association's ("FIFA") quadrennial World Cup soccer tournament is unchallenged as the highest profile4 and highest grossing sporting competition on Earth. Notwithstanding its popularity, however, soccer sits at a troubling crossroads as the sport's governing bodies grapple with the impact that the risk of brain injury is having on the game. Soccer is, of course, not alone in this regard. The risk of brain injury exists in all team …

Using Global Migration Law To Prevent Human Trafficking, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Our understanding of human trafficking has changed significantly since 2000, when the international community adopted the first modern antitrafficking treaty-the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Trafficking Protocol).' Policy attention has expanded beyond a near-exclusive focus on sex trafficking to bring long-overdue attention to nonsexual labor trafficking. That attention has helped surface how the lack of international laws and institutions pertaining to labor migration can enable-if not encourage -the exploitation of migrant workers. Many migrant workers throughout the world labor under conditions that do not qualify as trafficking yet suffer significant rights …

A Legal Perspective On Yemen's Attempted Transition From A Unitary To A Federal System Of Government, Paul Williams, Tiffany Sommadossi, Ayat Mujais

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Yemen's 2013-2014 National Dialogue Conference paved the way for Yemen to transition from a unitary to federal system of government. This is a common trajectory for States emerging from conflict as federalism offers the hope for greater democratic governance and inclusivity. Nevertheless, there is a danger in assuming that there is an ideal federal model to emulate or that federalism is itself a guaranteed remedy for political dysfunction and authoritarianism. Transitioning to federalism is an arduous, expensive, and technically complicated process. Such transitions can also renew conflict if, prior to the drafting of the federal constitution, key issues related to …

Is The U.S. Supreme Court Becoming Hostile To The Administrative State, Jeffrey Lubbers

Contributions to Books

Jeffrey S. Lubbers, Is the U.S. Supreme Court Becoming Hostile to the Administrative State?, prepared for the Administrative Law Discussion Forum held at the University of Luxembourg, July 1-2, 2015; published (with other papers) by Carolina Academic Press in Comparative Perspectives on Administrative Procedure Global Papers Series Volume III pp. 31-50 (Russell W. Weaver, et. al. eds 2017). Draft available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2645036

Freeing The Law, Khelani Clay

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

President Obama's Approach To The Middle East And North Africa: Strategic Absence, Paul Williams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Many commentators argue that the White House does not have a policy regarding the Middle East and North Africa. Based on observations of the White House's foreign policy decisions over a breadth of seven years, this article argues that The White House does have a clear policy and it is one of Strategic Absence. The term Strategic Absence is used to describe political behavior that arises from a belief that sometimes, in foreign affairs, it is better to be absent rather than present. Strategic Absence has led to a degradation of American influence in the Middle East and has contributed …

Giving As Governance: Philanthrocapitalism And Modern-Day Slavery Abolitionism, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Essay examines the potential influence of a new breed of actor in the global antitrafficking arena: the venture philanthropist, or "philanthrocapitalist." Philanthrocapitalists have already helped rebrand "trafficking" as "modern-day slavery," and have expressed their ambitions to lead global efforts to eradicate the problem. With their deep financial resources and access to powerful networks, philanthrocapitalists hold tremendous power to shape the future trajectory of the antitrafficking movement. this Essay warns, however, against the possibility that philanthrocapitalists could also reconfigure the landscape of global antitrafficking policymaking, marginalizing or even displacing other actors' efforts to address the problem.

Expunging America's Rap Sheet In The Information Age, Jenny Roberts

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

"Getting a Second Chance After a Criminal Record.", "Want to Expunge Your Record?', "South Carolina Debating If It Should be Easier to Expunge a Brush with the Law." "Making a Fresh Start in Little Village." These are only some of the headlines of newspaper articles and television segments that came up in a Google Alert for "expungement" during one typical week in late 2014. The same week, in Cincinnati, Ohio, city council members backed expungement of low-level marijuana convictions. Expungement news that week was not limited to the United States. In Jamaica, the legislature passed a bill that allows expungement …

Soft Whistleblowing, Amanda Leiter

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article explores the underappreciated role that agency insiders play in directing outside oversight of their employer agencies and, in turn, manipulating agency policy development. Specifically, the Article defines, documents, and evaluates the phenomenon of "soft whistleblowing"-an agency employee's deliberate, unsanctioned, substantive, and instrumental disclosure of nonpublic information about issues of policy. This phenomenon is ubiquitous but has received no systematic attention in the academic literature. As the Article demonstrates, agency employees regularly engage in soft whistleblowing to congressional staff, journalists, and agency watchdog groups, in an effort to bring outside pressure to bear on their employer agencies to shift …

Exploitation Creep And The Unmaking Of Human Trafficking Law, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The U.S. government and influential NGOs have been promoting a greatly expanded legal and policy understanding of the problem of human trafficking, recasting forced labor as trafficking, and trafficking as "modern-day slavery." The aggregate effect is a doctrinally problematic "exploitation creep." For strong legal and policy reasons, anti-trafficking efforts should target struc- tural vulnerability to trafficking through strengthened labor frameworks. On the same grounds the article contests initiatives to conflate human trafficking with slavery and to address trafficking primarily under an ex post crime-control par- adigm focused on perpetrator accountability and victim protection.

Lower Court Constitutionalism: Circuit Court Discretion In A Complex Adaptive System, Doni Gewirtzman

American University Law Review

While federal circuit courts play an essential role in defining what the Constitution means, one would never know it from looking at most constitutional scholarship. The bulk of constitutional theory sees judge-made constitutional law through a distorted lens, one that focuses solely on the Supreme Court with virtually no attention paid to other parts of the judicial hierarchy. On the rare occasions where circuit courts appear on the radar screen, they are treated either as megaphones for communicating the Supreme Court’s directives or as tools for implementing the theorist’s own interpretive agenda. Both approaches would homogenize the way circuit courts …

Modeling The Second Amendment Right To Carry Arms (I): Judicial Tradition And The Scope Of "Bearing Arms" For Self-Defense, Michael P. O'Shea

American University Law Review

This Article sheds light on a major constitutional question opened up by the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago: Does the Second Amendment “right to bear arms” include a right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home? Some courts and commentators have declared that Heller held that the Second Amendment right is limited to the home, so that restrictions on handgun carrying do not even fall within the scope of the Second Amendment. Others assert that the potential applicability of the right to bear arms outside …

The Federal Power Act's Double Standard: Unwinding The Mobile-Sierra Doctrine After Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Inc. V. Public Utility District No. 1, John M. White

American University Law Review

Emerging from two Supreme Court opinions decided in the 1950’s, the Mobile-Sierra doctrine has evolved to stand for a principle of contract sanctity in public utility rate setting. The courts have largely come to the conclusion that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has less authority to modify rates set by contract, as compared to unilaterally-filed tariff rates, when the contract is the result of arm’s-length negotiations between sophisticated parties of equal bargaining power, unless the contract indicates otherwise. Only in “extraordinary circumstances,” the Court has found, may the Commission step in to modify any such “Mobile-Sierra contract.”

The Second-Class Action: How Courts Thwart Wage Rights By Misapplying Class Action Rules, Scott A. Moss, Nantiya Ruan

American University Law Review

Courts apply to wage rights cases an aggressive scrutiny that not only disadvantages low-wage workers, but is fundamentally incorrect on the law. Rule 23 class actions automatically cover all potential members if the court grants plaintiffs’ class certification motion. But for certain employment rights cases—mainly wage claims but also age discrimination and gender equal pay claims—29 U.S.C. § 216(b) allows not class actions but “collective actions” covering just those opting in affirmatively. Yet courts in collective actions assume a gatekeeper role just as they do in Rule 23 class actions, disallowing many actions by requiring a certification motion proving strict …

Rabid Redux: The Second Wave Of Abusive Icsid Annulments, Paul Friedland, Paul Brumpton

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Folly Of Rule 14a-11: Business Roundtable V. Sec And The Commission's Next Step, Stephanie Lyn Parker

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.